Grounded
by Rocket Owl
Summary: Everyone needs an outlet, and you can only hide behind guilt for so long. [Part 2 of Broken Wings]


**AN**: ive been putting most of my strange magic stuff on ao3, but ill start trickling them over here for those of you who dont want to go there

* * *

What wasn't useful only slowed her down. She'd given up long dresses because they got in the way, had given up pageantry because she didn't see the point of it all. Now she was giving up something that was, while no longer useful, pained her to lose regardless.

"Cut it off." Repeated Marianne, focusing on one of the whorls of wood in the far wall. The healer and her aides looked at each other before getting to work. They'd spent the last three days trying to find a way to... help her. Convince her not to go through with this. But there was no way to regrow a whole wing.

And the other, now, was just dead weight.

The fairies had numbed her back up, in preparation for the procedure, and had her lie down on her belly while they brought out enormous shears. Usually used for cutting away dead or rotting portions of wings or limbs when there was no other choice, the metal gleamed viciously in the light of the room and Marianne grimaced at the sight.

Dawn, bless her, stood to the side of the table and was holding Marianne's hand tightly, looking heartbroken for her sister's loss but determined to be there for her. The elder sister squeezed Dawn's hand gratefully; this would be much harder without her here.

It took only one snip, and she heard it more than felt it. A light tug at the numbed area of her back, and then the weight falling away. She heard her wing slide to the floor and braved a look down to it.

Cleanly cut. Precise. Surgical.

Marianne swallowed and felt a stab in her chest regardless.

The nurses sewed up what remained of the stump on her back, applying ointments and poultices to stave off infection. One of the aides picked up her wing, delicately, and carried it away out of sight. Probably to be burned, or buried. Either way, she didn't care anymore. Couldn't afford to if she didn't want to slip further into the bubbling anger despair that still filled her from the loss.

"You okay?" Dawn asked her quietly, kneeling by the bedside so they were face to face. Marianne slowly exhaled and managed to force a smile.

"Not really. But I'll get better."

* * *

Getting better, for Marianne, involved a lot of training. She was used to flight, used to the mobility it gave her. And without them she was stuck more or less on the ground and whatever else she could leap up to. Worse than that, she'd always had her wings as a counterweight, to use when she flipped and jumped, to maintain her balance in precarious positions. Without them she kept overcompensating, and more than once had slipped off of logs or fallen onto her face.

The frustration was better than the sorrow, anyway.

The sprites that assisted her chittered anxiously every time she lost her footing, of course, but they were as useful as always, and Marianne had enough discipline to keep getting back up and working through the problems. Beating them with a stick, as it were. She was used to this, after all. Training had taken up a large part of her life after she'd called things off with Roland. The training itself was frustrating, but it didn't _anger_ her.

No, what angered her was the fact that since dropping her off here, the Bog King hadn't so much as sent a letter to her. No visits. No messengers. Nothing. She'd channeled her disappointment into training, turning it from _upset_ to _mad_. Mad was what she was _good at_.

It got to the point where none of the guards wanted to spar with her, because of her 'disability,' and their pitying gazes only enraged her further. She wasn't delicate, and she wasn't less of a fighter because of her lack of flight. And the sprites could only take so much abuse from sparring before they needed a rest. Her own father avoided her these days, and she snapped at anyone who tried to offer their 'condolences.'

"Marianne," Dawn told her one night, curling up with her sister on her rose bed. "You've been sparring non-stop for weeks now. Don't you think that maybe... you should find something else?"

"There _isn't_ anything else I want to do right now." She growled back.

Dawn gave her a sad look and hugged her tight. "I just don't want to see you angry forever."

"...I'm trying."

"I know, Mari. I love you, okay?" The younger fairy wrapped her wings around Marianne. "I'll help."

* * *

"What's _wrong_ with you?"

The goblins in the court glanced uneasily at each other. If any of them had spoken to their lord in such a way he would surely have taken their heads off. And this little slip of a fairy, wings and hair bright and glowing like sunlight, looked weak and out of place in this castle of brambles and thorns. Even so, they all remembered what her voice had done to their ears during her last stay here, so none intervened.

"Do you realize what you've been doing? I come here looking for you, expecting you be – I don't know – _hurt_ or _sick_ or _something_. Something to explain why you haven't shown your face for the last five weeks. Instead I find you _moping!_"

The Bog King simply stared at the angry fairy, mouth open, unable to come up with an intelligent response quite yet. Dawn looked quite furious, shrugging off Sunny's trembling hand when he reached up to try and calm her down.

"I'm not _moping_." He finally snarled, standing up. The goblins shuffled anxiously, but he dismissed them all with a wave. This should have been a private audience anyway, he realized belatedly, hearing them slowly scuttle out of the chamber while his eyes remained on the fairy. Dawn was relentless as ever. The young princess sniffed and lifted her chin, eyes narrowing.

"Then why haven't you so much as talked to Marianne?" She fluttered closer, well off the ground so that she could meet his gaze. "She's done nothing but bite everyone's heads off since the accident. And no _wonder;_ since she lost her wings the only person who can stand her right now seems to be _me_." No bitterness in her voice; Dawn didn't resent her sister for her anger. Instead she was _worried_. "Did her losing her wings really affect your opinion of her _that_ much?"

"No-"

"So just because she can't fly with you anymore you decide she's not worth your time?"

"_No!_"

"Then what? I get that you're a big bad broody king but even _you_ should-"

"It was _my fault!_" He hadn't realized he'd started hovering, scales clattering and clicking together with his agitation. Dawn went silent, eyes still narrowed, and folded her arms to wait for him to continue. The Bog King sank slowly back to stand on the ground, wings drooping against his back. "I'd known... the rains- th'dirt would be loose, all over the forest. I didn't even _think_ ta warn her." His head dropped and his gaze fell to the floor. "And I never... I never came to _her_, instead." Even though the Light Forest was much safer to travel through, even after bad weather conditions.

Dawn's gaze softened and she landed in front of the Bog King, letting her arms drop to her sides. Sunny, still in the room, looked between them but remained silent.

"I dinnae want ta deal with yer _father_." The word was a snarl in his mouth, even through his guilt. "I let her come to me, all those times, 'cause it make things easier for _me_. For my own _comfort_. And now she's..." He put a hand up to his face, covering his eyes and letting out a shuddery breath, spines clicking again. "She's paid tha price for my selfishness."

"Bog." He looked up, almost reflexively correcting to 'Boggy' before biting his tongue. "Did you break that cliff apart on her? Did you tell her to fly through that particular patch of forest?" When he shook his head she went on. "So it wasn't your fault. Sure, you guys could compromise a bit more, but that's something you're gonna have to work out yourselves. But you being here? Leaving her alone when she needs all the help and friends she can get right now? Worse than an accident."

The troll grimaced, wanting to hiss at her, but abating just as quickly. Whatever she said, he would hold some guilt with him, always. But she was right; Marianne deserved better treatment than this.

"I will... go ta her, then."

"See that you do."

* * *

The rustle of his wings was distinctive; she'd have recognized the sound anywhere.

"So." She growled, not even bothering to look over her shoulder. "You finally decided to show up."

No answer, not immediately. She didn't bother facing him, instead continuing to hack at the wooden dummy in the center of the training pit. The sprites were taking a break today to recover, and the moment she'd come in the guards that had been using the pit cleared out. Nothing to do but vent on the dummy, chopping bits off with each two handed swing of her sword.

When she heard him stepping closer, however, she whirled on him, sword pointed at his chest. The Bog King raised his hands, staff resting in the crook of an elbow. Weapon out of his hands. A gesture of submission, almost.

"I came to see how you were doin'."

"Doing just _fine_, thanks for asking."

The dark king frowned at her, brows pinched together in concern. Marianne's lip pulled up in a snarl. After all this time he had the _gall_ to just show up and _pretend_ to be _worried_ about her? With a roar she charged at him, swinging, and he barely got his staff up in time to block.

"Easy, easy-" He deflected her next blow, backing up, giving ground, but he didn't take off into the air as she'd half expected he would. She wasn't sure if she was grateful for that or if she should be irritated. He wasn't fighting back at all, much to her consternation, no matter how hard she came at him.

"Don't you tell me to go 'easy,' Bog! I've been rotting here in this castle for over a month- you haven't event showed your scaly face here till Dawn went to guilt you into coming!" Dawn had left earlier that morning, and had returned only ten or twenty minutes before Bog had arrived. Didn't take much to put two and two together.

The Bog King's face contorted in anger of his own before he stifled it, instead looking guilty. He blocked another blow and skipped back, raising his hands again.

"I know. I _know_. I should have come sooner. Shouldn't have let you suffer here on yer own. Yer right."

His admission of his guilt, of his wrongs, of him giving up without so much as a squabble – she _screamed_ at him again, leaping through the air. Her sword showered sparks from his staff when they collided and he stumbled back with the force.

"Fight me!" She hissed up at him, hating the way he was giving in to her anger. The way he was treating her – like she was _fragile_.

"Marianne- I don't want to hurt you anymore-"

"Don't you _dare_ give me that you plated, spindly, spiney fucking _cockroach!_" The fairy's voice was positively _venomous_, eyes glittering with fury. "I said_ fight me!_"

The Bog King's face twisted in anger of his own and he finally – finally! – fought back against her. Starting swinging his staff with _intent_. Marianne rejoiced in the ugly scuffle, reveled at being able to just let _go_.

It was brutal, and cathartic. He didn't use his wings, but he already had a height advantage and didn't need it as much. For her part, she was faster than ever before, no longer carrying wings as long as she was tall that slowed her. Now he was no longer treating her like she was going to break apart – not like she needed to just calm down.

Because when it came down to it she wasn't calm. Couldn't be, not with the hurt and pain and sorrow and loss still knocking around her system. Not without an outlet to deal with those emotions. And at last he gave her that outlet, let her work her anger through, let her handle everything the only way she knew _how_.

They both sat together, panting, exhausted, what felt like hours later. Sweat dripped down Marianne's neck, causing her shirt to stick to her skin like it had been soaked in sap. Beside her the Bog King had let his staff lie in the dirt next to him, bearing bruises where she'd struck the pommel of her sword.

"You're... impressive as ever..." He told her between breaths, slowly regaining some of his composure. He added, hesitantly, "Tough girl."

The fairy huffed and wiped her brow, glancing at him. The rancor was gone, drained away by their spirited bout. Now she just felt tired. Empty.

"You're... shaping up too."

"Mm." She saw him turn towards her out of the corner of her eye, but only looked his way when his fingers lightly brushed her jaw. "Marianne. I know there's little I can do to... make this _right_. But you have my wings. Whenever you want them."

The fairy blinked at him. "Even if I get the urge to fly around at, oh, two in the morning?"

She could see him force down a smile at that. "Even then."

Inhaling slowly, she finally nodded and smiled in return. "Yeah. Okay. It's.. It's a start." It would never be the same as having her wings, she knew. Nothing would ever compare to that kind of freedom. But it was something.

Bog sighed and pulled her closer, just enough to rest their foreheads together. She allowed it, rubbing her head a little against his. After weeks of nothing, it was nice to have him here again, despite the insults she'd thrown at him. Nice to feel his affection for her.

"I could also use a sparring partner." She added, feeling the tip of his nose brushing over her cheek, her hair tangling in the scales on his head. He chuckled, brushing hair that had stuck to her face back behind her ear.

"I could do that, too."


End file.
